Are tragedies more interested in making us accept hard truths about the nature of life or are they designed to reassure us that they can be overcome? Consider this question in relation to "Hamlet".

A stage tragedy is defined as a play about momentous events in which an individual of noble qualities falls into misfortune though a flaw of character. Such flaws are often said to be directed by fate, and thus the question whether we should accept tragedies as hard truths about the nature of life, or challenge that they can be overcome? A close study of Shakespeare's tragic character Hamlet allows us to examine the two premises. On one hand is Hamlet a victim of his preordained disposition, an individual of moral character prone to procrastination or is the construction of Hamlet designed to reassure us that such flaws can be overcome?

Through the construction of a young prince, Prince Hamlet facing the onerous task of seeking vengeance of his father's murder, a man encumbered with the fatal flaw of procrastination that seriously impedes justice being meted out, and also resulting in the death of the Prince himself and most other characters, Shakespeare questions his audience whether Hamlet's character flaw should be accepted as the nature of life or could Hamlet have addressed his short coming and changed his destiny?

Hamlet's procrastination in confronting Claudius and seeking justice resulted in enabling Claudius to be the architect of many unnecessary deaths.

David Garrick in Hamlet, I, 4

Hamlet

Hamlet avenged his father by killing his uncle The...

The first death is that of Polonius, the father of Ophelia and Laertes happens. Hamlet mistakes Polonius as being Claudius hiding in his mother's bedchamber, and thus he draws his sword and stabs him through the fabric of the tapestry. After this occurrence of mistaken identity, Hamlet does not feel remorse for killing an innocent bystander which is shown in the quote, "Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! ... Take thy fortune." Hamlet does not want to accept that Polonius's death was actually his fault. Thus, he tries to prove to Gertrude...

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